Installing a software product, such as tax preparation software (e.g. TurboTax® available from Intuit, Inc.) in a personal computer requires the copying of numerous files in numerous directories. Specifically, when TurboTax® is being installed at C:Program Files\TurboTax, a number of subdirectories (also called “folders”) are created. For example, one subdirectory is created for holding the executable “ttax.exe” and related shared libraries, which are files with extension “.dll” such as cdac14ba.dll, clientmesndll.dll and mvmg13n.dll, another subdirectory is created for holding image files, which are files with the extension “.bmp” such as fidelityinvestments—0.bmp and cititrade—0.bmp, and yet another subdirectory is created for holding tax forms, such as fdi02f05.1pe and fdi02ttx.1pe. Although only a handful of subdirectories have been mentioned, there may be an entire tree of such subdirectories which is several levels deep. Moreover, although only a few files have been mentioned above, a typical installation of today's software products requires the set up and copying of 100s of files or even 1000s of files, depending on the software product.
The process of installing a software product containing such a vast number of files in numerous subdirectories (of which the end user has no knowledge) is simplified in today's computers by use of software that is typically called an “installer”. The installer not only copies all necessary files from a storage medium (such as one or more CD-ROMs or floppy disks), but also decompresses the files (if necessary). The installer may also update one or more configuration files and/or environment variables which reside in the computer irrespective of the software product being installed.
One prior art installer is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192 granted to Henry on Oct. 10, 2000 and entitled “Software Installation”. According to U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192 (see column 1, lines 30-56) a single executable file containing the prior art installer may be transferred from a source, such as a website on the Internet, to any disk drive that can be written to and is associated with the computer to which the software product is to be installed. U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192 also states (see column 1, lines 56-62) that the same single executable file may also contain the source of a tree of files, in addition to the prior art installer (called “shell program” by U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192).
Such a shell program (or installer) of the prior art may be executed to first install the software in a temporary directory, followed by, among other steps, (a) decompressing one or more individually compressed files in the tree of files, (b) modifying the computer's configuration files, and (c) installing of decompressed files in a target directory (at which the software product is to be permanently installed). U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192 also describes (see column 3, lines 23-30) an improved installer that contains software materials necessary for the installation of a software product on a computer, and that, once executed, searches for and uses only a small amount of temporary storage space in the process of getting the files of the software product in the target directory, causes the software product to be set up on the computer, and cleans-up the temporary storage space. U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,192 is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, as background to this invention.
See also U.S. Pat. No. 6,718,373 granted to Bearden, et al. on Apr. 6, 2004 and entitled “Method and system for installing files in a computing system” that is also incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, as background to this invention.